Belgian Audi Club Team WRT

The Belgian Audi Club Team WRT had a very positive start of the season in the
Blancpain Endurance Series as well. After winning the two first races of the FIA GT1
World at Nogaro last week, the Belgian Audis R8 LMS ultra took 2nd and 7th in the seasonopener
of the highly-competitive (57 entries!) Blancpain series, which took place under
torrential rain in Monza. Marco Bonanomi-Edward Sandström-Laurens Vanthoor finished
on the podium after a solid race, while Christopher Mies-Christopher Haase-Stéphane
Ortelli managed to finish 7th, despite some suspension trouble that slowed their pace.

The weeked started in a challenging fashion for the WRT Team. The cars used for the B.E.S.,
brand new, arrived at Monza with basically no shake-down and some stability problems arose
during free practice. This said, car #1 qualified 7th with Ortelli, while car #2 had to start from
position 37, after Laurens Vanthoor had a slight contact with the barriers in his qualifying
session, which left Marco Bonanomi in the pits for Q3.

Heavy rain invited itself for the race on Sunday, causing the start to be given behind the safetycar,
which stayed on the track for 38 minutes. At the green flag, Christopher Mies on the #1
started gaining positions and the German was fourth when he came into the pits at the end of
his stint. “Visibility was really an issue”, admitted the young German, “and it has been a good
decision to have the safety-car for 11 laps on the track. Once the real race started, I could find a
good pace, as the car was quite good on wet”. Christopher Haase further climbed in the
rankings, ending his stint in third, but unfortunately an issue with the rear left suspension during
the tire change slowed #1. In the last stint, Stéphane Ortelli regained some of the lost ground,
stabilizing the car in seventh position.

Andrea Bonanomi had phenomenal charge from P37 on the grid in the initial stint at the wheel
of the #2 car, finishing his stint in 14th position, with Edward Sandström gaining more positions
and coming back to the pits in P3. “Despite this being my first race with the R8 on the wet, I am
very happy of my performance”, said the Swede, “the car is really good in these conditions, very
stable, and the Michelin tires work very well. I was very careful not to take unnecessary risks,
some parts of the track, like the Parabolica were really treacherous. Apart from that, the only big
problem was traffic”. In the final stint, an aggressive Laurens Vanthoor conquered the second
position with a final overtaking on Hennerici 25 minutes from the end.

Wrapping-up the weekend, sports manager Pierre Dieudonné concluded: “It’s a good team
result that gives us some good points, after a weekend which was not easy. We basically lost
free practice fixing a youth problem on the new cars and this delayed us a lot in setting-up the
cars. But the team has put on a very solid performance, both in qualifying and in the race, and
also in the pits, and this allowed us to finish the weekend on a higher note. Without the
suspension problem on car #1, we could even have had two cars on the podium.”

The team will now concentrate on next weekend, which sees the FIA GT1 World back on the
agenda, with no less than the home event of Zolder!